Too many colors (was: Bersani - Pynchon, Paranoia, and Literature)

[jporter]

>> From: "Otto Sell" <o.sell at telda.net>
>> Subject: Bersani - Pynchon, Paranoia, and Literature (was: O'Donnell,
> "Postmodernity and the Symptom of Paranoia")
>> Date: Tue, Feb 6, 2001, 6:33 AM
>> 
> 
> Bersani:
> 
>> "The Pychonian opposition between They (IG Farben etc.) and We (Slothrop,
>> Mexico, Pirate Prentice, etc.) is a replay of the opposition of Slothrop's
>> Puritan forefather's polarity of the Elect and the Preterite. Information
>> control is the contemporary version of God's eternal knowledge of each
>> individual's ultimate damnation or salvation, and both theology and computer
>> technology naturally produce paranoid fears about how we are hooked into the
>> system, about the connections it has in store for us." (103)
> 
> And thus the whole "We"/"They" binary deconstructs right before our (their?)
> very eyes ...
> 
> Thanks for the quotes, précis, and your own thoughts Otto.
> 
> best

Fuckin' A. But before that deconstruction (I prefer melting for some
paranoid reason of my own), just to "keep the ball bouncing" a bit longer
here, isn't there a connection between Monroe/MacAdam's notion of _coolness_
in the face of overwhelming force (or knowledge, or control)- as in
potential for death or annihilation- as exemplified by those great jazz
artists alluded to, and, the nonchalance, or even blaise attitude many of us
cop in order to cope with the vertiginous acceleration of technical advance
in which we rather suddenly find ourselves- the growing maelstrom of
complexity threatening to suck us all in?

I mean- cloning, quantum computing, every reference ever published,
gargantuan information stores at the flick of a mouse key- who can keep up?
And it is, in its rational construction at least, all capable of being
ordered, but at what cost to "the self" (Maxwell's or Laplace's Demons might
do fine, but you and me? Fuh get about it.) Doesn't it threaten to make
slaves of us all? Paranoia might be seen as a shortcut for
self-preservation- a subconscious reductionist scheme to deal with
information overload. So the implicit preamble to "keep cool..." might be:
"given the overwhelming opportunities (and temptations) to become paranoid-
keep cool, but care."

jody